


Control

by thedevilchicken



Category: Vampyr (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, Come as Lube, Dubious Consent, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Post-Canon, Rescue, Something Made Them Do It, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 17:37:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20728160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: McCullum is missing. He's left instructions to ask Jonathan for help.





	Control

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linndechir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/gifts).

> For linndechir, because apparently the original idea I had needed to go in two slightly different directions!

Jonathan used to believe he had control of his life. He had a loving family and a career in which he took an almost passionate interest. He would like to believe he did good in the world and now he questions his humanity twice weekly. And Geoffrey McCullum is asleep in his bed. He understands that control is an illusion.

It's not a surprise that McCullum's in his bed because he left him sleeping there this morning, just before dawn, when he locked both doors to his room in the Pembroke. He was injured so it should have seemed perfectly natural for him to make his way to a doctor, but Jonathan knows he's not the only medical man of McCullum's immediate acquaintance. The ranks of the Guard of Priwen include field medics, after all, but lately McCullum has seemed reluctant to visit them. Jonathan wonders if he ever did before or if he's previously trusted his injuries to his own hands, and maybe to God's. 

For some time now, he's been trusting his injuries to Dr. Jonathan Reid of the Pembroke Hospital. Jonathan has colleagues who might believe they wield the power of life and death, but he's acutely aware that he is not, personally, any relation to God. Frankly, he's not even a man. For a number of years, nearly seven of them, he's been an Ekon, and a vampire hunter should not be sleeping in his bed like some strange kind of full-grown Irish Goldilocks. Yet there he is, with a dressing at his shoulder through which a spot of blood is showing. Perhaps more than just a spot. Jonathan finds it quite difficult to tear his gaze away.

As he waits for McCullum to wake, Jonathan finds it hard not to think back to another time and to another injury. As he waits for McCullum to wake, he lets himself remember.

\---

Almost seven years ago, after the epidemic ended, those of their warring factions left in London called a truce. They held discussions and they came to terms. And out of that truce, the Council rose. 

Frankly, at the time, Jonathan wanted nothing to do with it. He had his work at the Pembroke and more unofficial patients in the city streets than he could ever cure by conventional means, and this strange committee designed to keep the rather tenuous peace was a distraction he neither needed nor wanted. The only issue was that each of the groups that were to form the Council - the Guard of Priwen, the Brotherhood of St. Paul's Stole, the Ascalon Club, and the Sewer Skals - wanted him to join them or they'd walk away. Reluctantly, under the circumstances, he agreed, and they began their monthly meetings. That didn't mean he didn't feel at least somewhat resentful, though he did also feel a sense of quiet resignation.

All seemed relatively well from that point on. All seemed relatively quiet, except for the odd rogue Ekon stumbling into the city with no concept of their rules. They were dealt with quickly, and dealt with severely. Usually, at least. And all parties abided by the terms of their agreement. Over time, the truce seemed less and less uneasy. 

"Doctor Reid." 

Jonathan stopped and made an abrupt about-face in the rather starkly lit Pembroke corridor. When he saw him, he knew the man who'd spoken; he'd been present at the Council meetings, in the seat behind Geoffrey McCullum's right shoulder. His name was Larsson, he remembered, a sharp-eyed Scandinavian of some persuasion, though he'd never quite placed his accent. He was McCullum's lieutenant, Jonathan supposed, who never spoke out of turn and never caused a fuss; he left all of that to McCullum himself, who seemed infinitely better qualified for it.

"Guardsman Larsson. What can I do for you?"

Larsson's eyes darted up and down the corridor, as if concerned to be seen speaking with him. Jonathan did at least partially understand that particular sentiment; it wasn't exactly often that any member of the Guard of Priwen sought him out directly, unless dragging a comrade to his operating table. Larsson appeared to be alone, however, and the patient in the room behind him, currently with the nurses and awaiting transport to the post-operative ward, was a locksmith from Whitechapel rather than a guardsman. 

Jonathan couldn't claim to have a great deal of patience for the man, however, not when he'd so recently exited the theatre and was still so very covered in his patient's blood. He didn't doubt that Larsson could smell it on him as well as seeing it, thick and cloying and sharply metallic and enough to turn his stomach. To Jonathan, on the other hand, that smell was infuriatingly close to irresistible, and the mysterious appearance of a rather reticent vampire hunter didn't exactly do much to lighten his mood. 

He wiped both his bloody hands on the front of his already bloody shirt. "I don't have time for games, guardsman," Jonathan said. "Please either spit it out or see yourself to the door." 

Larsson said nothing, so Jonathan strode away down the corridor. After a moment, Larsson followed. Jonathan left the door to the room standing open and Larsson loitered there with his hands on the frame, then he took a deep breath that didn't appear to do anything to calm his nerves and finally, he came inside. He closed the door behind him. 

"So, are you going to tell me why you're here?" Jonathan asked. 

Larsson shoved his hands into his pockets, then apparently thought better of tying up his only means of self-preservation and let them hang in fists by his sides. 

"McCullum's missing," he replied.

"What exactly does that have to do with me?"

"When he left he said if he didn't come back in three days, I should get you." 

"So, it's been three days?"

Larsson winced. "It's been more like four." 

"Don't you follow your leader's orders, guardsman?"

Larsson huffed. He took two steps like he might go to sit down in the chair, then froze in place instead. "I thought he'd want me to be sure before I went and asked a leech for help," he said, then winced again. "No offence, I mean. For the leech thing."

Jonathan crossed his bloody arms over his bloody chest. "Oh, none taken," he replied. "By all means, go on. Why me?" 

"Well, he said you're the only one he can trust. Apart from me. And I was to get you." 

"That doesn't sound like him." 

"He said you'd say that. Then he said I had to ask you, how many times has he asked you for help?"

Jonathan perhaps pressed Larsson a little at that point and found he was telling the truth - he was a relatively inexperienced though extremely loyal twenty-something so alarmed by the situation as a whole that mesmerism was much easier than it ought to have been. Jonathan pressed him, and then he understood, because the fact was McCullum had never asked for his help. McCullum had occasionally _used_ his help, but he had never actually _asked_ for it. Whatever this was, it was evidently important. Whatever this was, he either couldn't trust the Guard or else he felt they were outgunned. 

"Fine," Jonathan said. "Yes, fine. I'll find him."

"Do you need anything to track him by? You know, clothes or something?"

Jonathan sighed. "I'm an Ekon, Larsson, not a hunting dog," he said. But what he didn't say was he didn't need help because he already knew what he was looking for. As it happened, he remembered the smell of McCullum's blood quite vividly. 

Larsson left, and once Jonathan had changed into clothing a little less bloody and post-surgical, he went out into the streets. Things were quieter now that the epidemic had been quelled and the Council existed, and he honestly couldn't recall the last time he'd been set upon by flu-enraged Skals or cross-wielding hunters. After the quarantine had ended he'd mostly left Whitechapel in the more than capable hands of Hsiao Shun and Nurse Crane, but that was where he went; he'd spent some time by the docks the previous evening and heard nothing about a kidnapped Irishman with a penchant for vampire slaying in the area, and he suspected he'd have picked up McCullum's scent himself had he disappeared near his home in the West End. He spoke a little with the local residents, and then, only an hour or two before dawn, he caught the scent. It was unmistakable, either from that ridiculous fight at the Pembroke six years prior, or perhaps just from their regular arguments at Council meetings. He had the sense that he'd been drafted in to be some kind of voice of reason, but more than once Old Bridget had stepped in to calm things down.

He followed the smell of blood hanging thick on the air. He followed it all the way through Whitechapel's narrow alleys to the wide steps of St. Mary's Church, where Larrabee was no longer resident. The church had been standing there empty and deconsecrated for years, as far as Jonathan knew, but there were lights flickering inside and a thoroughly conspicuous guard lingered by the doors. He supposed he could have tried for stealth but time was running somewhat short; he strode straight up to the door. He stared hard at the guard, a young Ekon he only recognised vaguely from a recent Council meeting - his group had signed an agreement to abide by the Council's rules while resident in London. An agreement they had apparently broken.

The sheepish Ekon at the door allowed him to enter, which was likely very much against his leader's directions. Once the door was open, the smell of blood was close to overwhelming. Inside, there they were, in the low light and the blood-drenched air: the group of young Ekons and their associated human thralls, all in various stages of undress. And, at the head of the room, was McCullum. He was stretched out naked on the church's old altar, or as close to naked as made no particular difference: his shirt was tucked up underneath his arms and his trousers had been pulled down to his knees, and he was bleeding - there were bite marks marching up and down the insides of both bare forearms and both thighs, dark puncture wounds smeared red with his blood. One of the Ekons bent to bite his wrist and Jonathan clenched his fists. He stepped forward. He walked toward the group of them, purposefully, straight up the dishevelled aisle in the candlelight. 

He understood what was happening here: they meant to topple the Council, albeit in their clumsy, naive way, and to have their way with London's human population as pets or slaves or supper. He'd met their type before. A little strength and a little immortality had gone very much to their heads. 

"Back away," he said, loudly enough that every last one of them turned to look at him. 

"Why should we do that?" their leader asked.

"Because you seem to have stolen my property." 

The leader frowned. "I don't smell him on you," he said. "I don't see your marks on him." 

"That's perhaps because I don't drink from him." 

"Then what _do_ you do?"

Jonathan glanced aside to one of the nearby couples, a human male gyrating slowly on a male Ekon's lap - a familiar human male, as he happens. Jonathan raised his brows. "Use your imagination," he said. 

"I'll need a bit more than _imagination_ if you expect me to give him up." He leaned forward, elbows to knees, challenging. "How about a demonstration? Convince me and maybe I won't kill you both." 

Jonathan weighed his options quickly as he glanced around the room. There were perhaps twelve or thirteen Ekons and as many human thralls on top of that; he didn't doubt that he could kill them all, but that kind of untargeted assault would likely kill McCullum, too. If he focused his energies more narrowly, however, he couldn't be sure that one of the Ekons wouldn't either kill McCullum just on the principal of the thing or find a way to attack and wound Jonathan himself. He'd come there to save McCullum, not to die in the attempt or to kill him himself. 

He sighed. He shrugged off his coat and let it drop to the semi-abandoned church's rather dusty floor. He knew precisely what he was going to have to do. For the moment, until the right moment, the best plan he could muster was distraction.

"I'm not entirely sure what you think this will prove," Jonathan said, "but if you insist..."

The leader smiled sharply. "Oh, I insist," he said. So Jonathan smiled tightly. He gave a curt nod. Then he began.

When he stepped up to the altar and rested his palm against McCullum's bare chest, McCullum opened his eyes. He looked groggy, which was likely from the several days of blood loss, and he made a rather feeble attempt to push Jonathan's hand away. Jonathan quickly caught his wrist and leaned down closer. 

"Listen to me, Geoffrey," he said, then dropped his tone a fraction further. "_Listen to me_," he said, with a quality to his voice that made McCullum's eyes go wide and glassy in a way that would never have been possible had he been closer to full strength. "You asked for my help. You told your man you trusted me. Trust me now. Do you understand?"

McCullum nodded. "Yes," he croaked, then he closed his eyes again. 

Jonathan moved. He considered bending McCullum over the side of the altar and having him there, easing his way with saliva, but that didn't seem to him to be quite enough of a show for this flamboyant group's purposes. As he ran his hand down McCullum's abdomen, as he found his cock there at the juncture of his thighs, he was acutely aware that they were being watched by all concerned. With his strange Ekon senses he could feel the blood of every being there in the building, including the Ekons, including their humans, and including McCullum. He could see McCullum's blood in his veins and in his arteries, throbbing with the beating of his heart. He could see it surging down into his manhood, stiffening it within Jonathan's grip, and he felt his own cock give a twitch of perverse interest in response to that. Then, audience or no, he bent to take the head of McCullum's erection into his mouth. 

McCullum moaned, loud and unexpected, and Jonathan leaned down lower. He braced himself with one hand on the stone of the ex-church's ex-altar and he let his mouth take in another inch of McCullum's cock. He teased the slit in the tip with the tip of his tongue, trailed it down, bobbing his head as he stroked with one hand. It wasn't exactly his first time, he had to admit; his youth had been replete with sexual encounters of a less than purely heterosexual nature, experiments while away from home at boarding school, in-college transgressions while up at Oxford, the occasional fellow surgeon or soldier while at war. Of course, he'd never had so many eyes on him before. 

He sucked him. He stroked him and he sucked him and his fingers rubbed a slow, insistent circle at the stretch of skin behind McCullum's balls until his hips began to shift against him entirely of his own accord. McCullum's breath sounded harsh in the still, bloody air, and Jonathan could feel his muscles tensing; he continued, his pace quickening, taking more, taking him deeper, making his chest heave with his too-fast breath, then he pinned McCullum's hips to the altar as he emptied himself into his mouth in a sudden, bitter rush. Of course, that had entirely been the plan - he pulled away and he pushed and he pulled and he tugged at McCullum, rearranging him until he had him leaning down face first over the altar. He parted his cheeks and exposed his hole and spat out a mouthful of McCullum's own come there against it. He rubbed his fingers through it, rubbed the tight rim of his hole until McCullum relaxed just enough for him to ease his forefinger in past it, into him, down to his knuckle, slicking him inside. Then he pushed down his own trousers and he tucked up his own shirt and he rubbed the length of his cock through the mess he'd made between McCullum's cheeks. He guided his blunt tip against McCullum's hole. He eased forward. He watched him stretch to take him in. He felt it, too. 

At first, he gripped McCullum's hips. He's had years to come to understand the powers his vampirism affords him; he's studied his blood under the lenses of a microscope, he's studied his hair and his spit and his come and small samples of his flesh, and written down his findings. He's studied other Ekons, the few who share his scientific interest or are willing to submit to his examinations in exchange for payment. He's tested his strengths and his skills: he's hunted down dangerous Skals and rogue Ekons under the Council's accords and aside from that, in conditions as close to clinical as he can make them, he's explored the extent of the things he can do. When he gripped McCullum's hips, he knew precisely how much pressure he could apply before he risked raising bruises, and to his shame he went a little further anyway. McCullum would be bruised where Jonathan's hands had been. 

Af first, he gripped his hips, and then he shifted. He pushed in deep, until skin pressed up against skin, then he took one handful of McCullum's hair. When he pulled at it, McCullum's back arched, and he kept his free hand down by his arse, pressing him there, his thumb rubbing at the cleft by where Jonathan entered him, so he couldn't rise up any higher from the altar. McCullum's fingers splayed over the altar top and his breath caught, and somehow he turned just far enough to meet Jonathan's gaze with his bleary, bloodshot blue eyes. When Jonathan eased back an inch then thrust back into him, McCullum bared his teeth and hissed in a breath and Jonathan could have sworn his own cock stiffened just a little further in him in response, while they looked straight at each other. He was at least moderately certain that McCullum hated him, but that hardly seemed to matter. He had every intention of saving the insufferable bastard's life in spite of that. 

When he came, he was gripping McCullum's shoulders from above, his fingertips hooked over and pressing at his collarbones. He thrust in deep and he came there, inside him, with a groan of strained and not entirely reluctant pleasure that he didn't bother stifling. When he pulled out, McCullum slumped forward, but Jonathan quickly rearranged him again; he leaned back against the altar himself and he pulled McCullum to him, one arm around his bare waist to support his weight. The fingers of his other hand moved down between McCullum's cheeks again, and teased his hole, and pushed inside, slick as he still was with his own come and now with Jonathan's. McCullum braced himself almost completely ineffectively against the altar's edge. He rested his forehead down heavily against Jonathan's shoulder. Jonathan brushed McCullum's ear with his lips as he turned his head, and he felt him shiver. 

"They won't let us go just because you fucked me like you meant it," McCullum murmured. "But you're not stupid, for a leech. You know that." 

"I do." 

"Then whatever the fuck you're planning, Reid, for fuck's sake do it soon." 

He pulled back, unsteadily, just far enough to look Jonathan in the eye again. Jonathan's fingers were still pushed up knuckle-deep inside him. McCullum licked his lips. Somehow, his cheeks were flushed. And then, Jonathan kissed him, pressed his mouth to his, raked his bottom lip with the points of his fangs just hard enough to draw a little blood though he'd swear even now that he hadn't intended to. McCullum just groaned against his mouth, low and raw, as his nails raked the back of Jonathan's neck. Apparently, he still had the wherewithal to play along. 

"When I say so, go down and stay down," Jonathan murmured. "Stay down and pray, Geoffrey. Do you understand?"

"Yes." 

McCullum took a shaky breath against the corner of Jonathan's mouth. Jonathan's fingers slipped from inside him. 

"Now." 

McCullum dropped to the floor like a suspiciously human stone; Jonathan turned and he vaulted the altar. Before any of the Ekons or their humans could respond at all, whatever power he had within him seized them utterly. He tore the blood from inside their veins and burst them like balloons. Then he dropped to his knees, drained and fucking ravenous. The hunger he felt in that moment was so deep and so terribly immediate that he's even now surprised he didn't lick their blood up from the floor. He's surprised he didn't lick the blood from every one of McCullum's wounds. 

"Are you still with me, Geoffrey?" he asked instead, to ignore the hunger gnawing in him, and when McCullum didn't answer, he forced himself to move. He crawled around the altar on his hands and knees, his clothes still in complete disarray, and he felt for the pulse in McCullum's neck. He pressed his mouth there, chasing that feeling, as if the throb of his carotid underneath his skin could simulate a mouthful of his blood. Somehow, miraculously, he was still alive; Jonathan can still only attribute that to luck, or to McCullum's prayers. 

When he could stand, before they left, Jonathan set fire to the church and then returned McCullum to the Guard; along the way, McCullum explained they'd had a spy in the Guard of Priwen, and he'd walked straight into the trap they'd laid. Jonathan, of course, had taken care of that problem.

The three rats he drank from on his way home across the city didn't seem to curb his appetite at all, and then he slept through two full days. He woke hungry. More rats followed. He's still not entirely used to that, and he doubts he ever will be.

He's still not entirely used to what happened that night, either. 

\---

At the next meeting of the Council the following week, Jonathan barely said a word and none of what he did say was about what had happened. McCullum, though far from silent when it came to the Council's agenda items, held his tongue on what had become of St. Mary's Church and how one of his guardsmen had bargained his leader for the promise of eternal life. When their gazes met, briefly, Jonathan immediately looked away. He couldn't say he felt shame for what he'd done, not precisely, but he certainly felt something. At least part of the problem was that he knew precisely what McCullum looked like underneath his ever-shabby clothing. Part of it was the fact he wondered if there were still bruises like his hands at McCullum's hips. 

The following week, three guardsmen came to the Pembroke with an assortment of cuts and bruises, and one with a dislocated shoulder. Jonathan stitched two wounds and pulled the joint back into place, and sent them on their way with a moderately confused frown. None of them had been remotely close to death, and they'd perhaps seemed concerned when he touched them, yes, but they had all essentially retained their calm throughout the visit. He absolutely didn't understand. 

The following week, more guardsmen arrived; he set a broken arm and treated an infected knife slash, gave them each a small box of pills to ease the pain and sent them on their way just as before. Four days later, one came in with a nasty case of gastroenteritis and an escort who eyed Jonathan carefully. Another guard suffered chronic migraines. By the time they reached the next month's Council meeting, Jonathan was half convinced he'd missed a session and been elected as the Guard of Priwen's official physician in absentia. 

Two more months passed just as the one had prior, with the Pembroke - and Dr. Jonathan Reid - playing healer to what almost seemed to be the entire Guard of Priwen. He had to suppose at the very least he couldn't be accused of breaking their accords, and the guardsmen and women as a whole were in better health than ever. Jonathan had barely seen as many patients even in the war, though most he saw at the Pembroke were significantly less bloody. 

Then, what must be at least three months ago now, Jonathan returned to his room at the end of another very long night, no time to make it home before sunrise. He found McCullum there, sitting cross-legged on his neatly made bed. Jonathan only paused for a second before closing the door behind him; after all, if McCullum had finally decided to kill him, there was no need for a passing patient to see. 

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked, as he shrugged off his white coat. He hung it on the hatstand and then began to unbutton his waistcoat. It was almost dawn by then and he'd already spent entirely too many nights sleeping in his suit. 

"I have a job for you," McCullum replied, straightforwardly. 

"You might have noticed that I already have one," Jonathan said. He hung up his waistcoat. He unknotted his tie. "Frankly, you might be the only member of the Guard of Priwen who I don't consider my patient." 

McCullum snorted. He stood himself up from the bed. "Good," he said. "I'm not here for the doctor." He wandered closer, calm as calm could be, and he tapped two fingers against Jonathan's chest. "I'm here for the leech." 

Jonathan, petulantly, rolled his eyes at that. McCullum patted him obnoxiously on one cheek and then he made his way to the door. 

"Come to the Guardhouse tomorrow, after sunset," he told him. "We'll have a nice long talk about witches." 

When he left, he left the door open behind him; Jonathan slammed it, not entirely sure if he'd meant to or not, then he took himself to bed. He lay there, irritated, but the more he mulled it over, the more he had to admit he felt intrigued. 

He told himself he wouldn't go to the Guardhouse the next night, but he did. He told himself he wouldn't speak with Geoffrey McCullum, but he did. The night after that, they began to hunt a coven of devil-worshipping witches who had been plaguing the borough of Limehouse, and Jonathan had to admit it was the most alive he'd felt in months. He wondered if it was McCullum's way of thanking him for saving his life, or if the fact that he enjoyed their work was pure coincidence. 

It was witches first, then a gang of marauding Vulkods, then a necromancer raising liches, and somehow Jonathan has had to keep up his rounds - both his official ones and otherwise - in between all that. They've worked together against all of these things that Jonathan had never known existed, and against all the odds they have made an excellent team. But, last night, it turned out the emergency was a drunken fight in an East End pub that ended in a not terribly subtle glassing. What brought McCullum to his door wasn't supernatural at all.

After the witches, McCullum let himself into Jonathan's room at the Pembroke with a bottle of very cheap whiskey and he asked him, not quite snidely, if he wanted a drink. He then proceeded to drink until he could barely stand, and Jonathan's not completely sure how he made it back to the Guard of Priwen's headquarters. After the Vulkods, he came back again, that same terrible whiskey in hand; when he offered him a swig, Jonathan sniffed the bottle and made a face at it entirely involuntarily. After the necromancer, Jonathan had a better bottle waiting; McCullum treated it just like his cheap one, but at least Jonathan didn't feel queasy. But there are moments, when McCullum's had too much to drink, when the way he moves reminds Jonathan of that night in the church. Last night was like that. And last night, McCullum was bleeding. 

"I can feel you watching me," McCullum says, then he opens his eyes. He props himself up on his forearms, then rests his weight on just one of them so he can use his other hand tap at the bloody dressing on his chest. "I bet it's driving you mad." 

Jonathan smiles tightly, which he knows is an admission. When he doesn't expect is that McCullum leaves the bed and comes toward him. What he definitely doesn't expect next is that McCullum peels the dressing away. He lets it bleed and swipes at the blood with the pad of one thumb. Before Jonathan even thinks to react, McCullum smudges that blood against both of Jonathan's lips. He licks it away instinctively. McCullum laughs. 

"Fuck, Reid, the look on your face right now," he says, then he runs both of his hands over Jonathan's hair. They settle at the back of his neck and then McCullum straddles his lap. He sits there, shirtless and bleeding, as if that's perfectly natural for the two of them. 

"Geoffrey, what exactly do you think you're doing?" Jonathan asks, but he can't look away from the trickle of blood that's making its way down McCullum's chest. He can't make himself sound disgusted.

"You're not stupid, for a leech," McCullum replies. "Why don't you figure it out." 

So, Jonathan endeavours to figure it out. It's been months since that night. Months of guardsmen arriving at the Pembroke on an extremely regular basis when previously they'd avoided the place almost exactly like the plague. Months of working with McCullum, keeping their city free from threats, drinking whiskey or not drinking whiskey afterwards to celebrate. And while they've argued precisely as often as they always did before, Jonathan has to admit he knows something has changed. McCullum trusts him; that's the change. And maybe Jonathan is still a leech to him, but he suspects that he's not _just_ a leech. The teasing-mocking smile on his face seems to confirm that. It's disconcerting, but he wonders if the fighting was flirting all along.

Jonathan used to think he had control of his life: he had direction and enthusiasm, motivation and skill, he knew precisely where his path would lead. Now, Geoffrey McCullum kisses him, and it tastes like blood over last night's whiskey, and he knows control is something people only ever _think_ they have. 

"Come to bed," McCullum says, lowly, with his mouth by Jonathan's ear. 

"Didn't you just wake up?" he replies, and McCullum pulls his hair. He snorts. 

"Did I mention sleeping?"

He didn't. They won't. It's entirely exhilarating. 

These days, Jonathan is aware that he has no control. But he finds he doesn't mind that, not even a little.


End file.
